Reaper
Reapers are the lingering spirits of humans with reaper genetics. Natural Abilities Reapers do not have physical bodies, which renders them unaffected by gravity and able to fly through any barrier that is not ardor or soul-empowered. Anything intended to block a reaper must not only be soul-strengthened but also either airtight or built with soul nets, as a reaper can squeeze through any tiny gap. Lacking physical bodies, reapers also cannot be seen by humans, and are seen by servants and aberrations as a stand-in image of how they would expect a reaper to look. Though they are perceived as visual and auditory stimuli, they cannot be interrupted in the same way. Reapers can be seen easily in the dark, and heard easily even over loud noises. Reapers also have the ability to see the souls of the dead, recognize the souls of humans, servants, animals, plants, insects and other reapers, among others, and see an aura of doom on any human about to die. They can also easily tell the difference between humans and aberrations, and possibly gain some sense of what type of power they have. Due to their ethereal nature, reapers are immune to aging, disease and injury by anything except soul-empowered attacks. If a reaper is wounded it will have difficulty focusing and moving quickly and may need rest, but as long as a wound is not instantly fatal it is impossible for the reaper to die later of a mortal wound. Any injury that the reaper can survive at all they will recover from within about two weeks, even if it reduces them to a barely visible smudge. Psychology Reapers seem to have personalities similar to the ones that they had when alive, but with several drives and emotions reduced dramatically. They completely lack any sex drive, likely due to the lack of a physical brain to be affected by hormones. They also seem to be resistant to ennui, judging from the fact that they do not tend to commit suicide despite their advanced age. However, this may simply be because reapers with suicidal tendencies do kill themselves off leaving only the most emotionally resilient. They also have a tendency to develop various ways of entertaining themselves through the long years of their theoretically infinite lives. These include traveling so that they can learn about as much of the world as possible, observing the activities of humans, and trading sarcastic comments with their servants or other reapers. While these behaviors often seem childish, they can be a valuable source of stress relief to both a bonded reaper and their servant. Reapers also seem to have extremely good memories, although they often start to lose their grasp of time after a while. They also seem to generally be fairly wise, but this is likely due more to their old age and lack of biological drives than any innate part of their psychology. As Jupard proved, it is possible for a reaper to be as alarmingly stupid as humans can be, but this seems to be rare due to the tendency for such reapers to get themselves killed. Ferrying the Dead When a normal human dies, they leave behind a soul. Left alone, the soul will eventually decay, finally reaching a state described as "a prison of raw agony". In order to prevent this terrible fate, most reapers will ferry dead souls from the world to whatever waits beyond. Although they send souls to it every day, reapers to not know what the afterlife actually is, since they can only send people along the journey to it and cannot actually observe what comes next. This process takes a few hours, during which time the reaper will be unavailable. Taking Servants If a reaper wishes to have a more active effect on the world, they can choose to take on a dead human as their servant. That human will not be obligated to do anything for them, but they may be released by the reaper at any time when the reaper can touch their servant, and as long as the reaper/servant relationship is maintained the servant will gain superhuman powers. This means that there is a certain power balance since the reaper can threaten what amounts to death, but knows that they will lose the influence and status that a servant holds and may risk their servant betraying them. Category:Magic System